Hodgen School Under Demolition

i especially like how the SAB couldn’t have cared less about people’s pleas to save this building. i don’t believe they even acknowledged all the people who wrote/called in about it. all they care about is their shiny new parking lot. do any of them actually live within city limits? is there any way to get rid of them, or to take away their power to destroy valuable buildings at will? i would also like to see them held accountable for this misuse of taxes.

This building was damaged by the 1896 tornado, but was rebuilt.  There is at least one photo of a group of people, including some children who must have been students, standing in front of the damage a day or so after the tornado.  What a shame

 Did you write a letter? Did you get a response?

So sad that we discard what our ancestors toiled to give us.

http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/editorial/article_b0d3b826-c658-5b50-ae6c-255b1b251368.html
It is highly questionable as to whether demolishing perfectly good buildings is a legitimate use of tax funds when the stated intent was the opposite.  I would really like to figure out how to get information from SLPS on how they stated this money would be spent.  I don’t know enough about the issue to know if they had planned on demolishing this building prior to obtaining the funds via Prop S.  If they did and did not clearly state so then that would be deceptive and would be cause for investigation.  If they did not then the public should have some recourse to authorize this change of intent.  If someone were to receive a grant or a loan you could not just change the intended use of that grant or loan without consulting with the funder.  If you lied or were otherwise deceptive in order to secure the funding then I would think that would be punishable by law; perhaps some jail time as well.

 “…we can see this city’s casual disregard for its own future”. Not only its future, but its past, as well. All down the line, from the clearance of the riverfront for the Arch, years prior to any concrete proposals for its stead, to the demolition of Mill Creek Valley, upending and uprooting thousands of lives, this town has continuously turned its back on its past. Almost as if the people who lived here were ashamed of it, and wished to wipe clean the landscape, as if to erase the memory of it. However, one cannot eliminate the past, as if it were some monumental palimpsest. One can only conceal it, shade it with cheap words and ill-thought deeds, and the corruption of the spirit of public service seen specifically in the actions of the Special Administrative Board. These appointed lackeys, these pestilential pustules, these parasitic apparatchiks, these mongrel, mangy curs, have in our stead, in replacement of the people, brought down another piece of our cultural, architectural, historical, educational past without a single cognitive thought to share amongst them.  Their benighted ignorance, so carefully and purposefully cultivated in the insular world of the businessman class, is merely a consequence of the attitudes of many of those who see themselves as our Betters, called upon as if by holy writ to oversee our lives and our society, without regard for history or common sense.

Of course, one could say much of this in description of the entirety of today’s political and business elite. Clueless, out of touch, ignorant, without shame or conscience to temper the ill-bred schemes of ideologues and charlatans.

A pox upon their houses.

I went by HODGEN GRADE SCHOOL today (7-19-12) and was shocked!!!I knew it was to be torn down but GEE I spent all my younger years ….ALOT of history is going away,so sad!!!Steve Kelley

I live a few blocks from this lovely old building. There is some justice, at least, in how amazingly difficult this structure was to demolish. I get to watch both Pevely and Hodgen go down, and they ain’t going down easy!